The popularity of computer gaming has increased with the rise of the Internet and the development of online games. Many of these games require significant gaming time for gamers to complete, and a new genre of massively multiplayer online games has emerged, which do not have a defined ending but rather are played in so-called persistent worlds that continue indefinitely. As a result, gamers are spending increasing amounts of time engaged in the pursuit of computer gaming. To reach this audience of gamers, in-game advertising technologies have been developed that present in-game advertisements to gamers during game play.
One drawback with current computer games and in-game advertising technologies is that it is difficult to determine usage statistics for various games played by gamers, which could aid in effectively targeting advertising as well as providing feedback to game developers. While the operator of a particular online game may collect access statistics at its own game servers, no mechanism exists for the assemblage of usage data from a wide variety of different games from different game operators and developers, which are played on different user computers and game servers. This can result in ineffective advertising, or misplaced development efforts, both of which can degrade the user experience in a computer game.